Mark have you not spent much time in Europe? They actually have a far greater variety of engine choices than we do. In the US it a federal crime not to meet CAFE fleet average. There is no Eurozone equivalent. Gas price influences buyer selection but if you wish to sell 10.0 liter gas hogs there have at it.
The outrageous 50 plus mpg CAFE requirement here will dramatically eliminate engine variety as it has already begun to do at the lower levels. in 3years or less the 5.0 liter Genesis will history along with other so called fuel inefficient vehicles. That's called less choice.
And since we have a vastsupply of energy right here in the good old US of A that we leave untapped I conclude the goal is somehow to make Americans better global energy citizens instead of addressing any over-reliance on OPEC.
Yes I have been to Europe and the vast majority of cars sold there (including MB and BMW) have 4 cyl engines. Same applies to Asia.
The assertion that we don't have a lot of engine choices in the US is extremely misleading. One only needs to look at the Genesis sedan in the US where average engine size is larger than for Genesis sedans sold in Korea (and elsewhere outside of US). For example, the Genesis sedan with the 3.3L engine that is sold in Korea is not even sold in the US. If we have fewer engine choices in the US, it is almost always because we are not offered the smallest engines sold elsewhere (and I don’t think you are complaining about that). Same applies to BMW, where in Germany you can get the BMW 520i and 528i, both with 4 cyl engines (not to mention the BMW 520d and 525d 4 cyl diesel engines). In Germany, you can get a BMW 7-Series with a 6 cyl engine.
I am not sure what you are talking about with criminal penalties, since AFAIK there are only fines for not meeting targets, so in theory the fines could be passed to the consumer for each car sold if CAFE numbers are not meet for the fleet. So one may have to pay more for a gas guzzler up front, instead of paying more for fuel that has been doubled in price due to taxes. Also, automakers can buy or sell CAFE credits from/to other automakers. Obviously, if one does not pay the fine owed, there would be criminal penalties.
Note that MPG ratings for CAFE are significantly different than EPA ratings. Over the years EPA ratings for MPG have been adjusted to better approximate what actual consumers will achieve. For the purposes of CAFE, however, there's a different calculation that's far more optimistic in terms of fuel economy. Thus a car that achieves 35 mpg for purposes of the CAFE calculation will likely wear an EPA window sticker that has a combined (highway/city) rating of somewhere around 26 to 27 miles per gallon.
Not sure where you got the 50 MPG number from. By year 2020 a car with footprint size of MB S-Class (similar in size to Genesis sedan) is targeted for 36 MPG according to CAFE ratings, or 27 MPG combined (highway/city) according to EPA ratings. By year 2025, these increase to 46 and 34 MPG respectively. Remember, these are not hard requirements, just numbers that feed into the overall corporate fleet calculation that determines whether the manufacturer has to pay a fine or needs to buy credits. If the smaller cars for a particular manufacturer are better than CAFE requirements, then the manufacturer can produce other large engine cars that do not meet CAFE targets without having to pay a fine, so long as the fleet average is OK (based on weighted average of number of units sold). Looks to me like Hyundai is well-postioned in that regard.
In addition, smaller volume automakers that sold fewer than 400,000 cars in 2009 will get a break on the requirements while "specialty automakers" such as BMW and Porsche will get longer lead-in times.
I am not necessarily endorsing any specific CAFE targets, or even endorsing CAFE itself, but doubling the cost of gas with additional taxes would destroy the US economy. The cost of gas does not just affect what cars consumers buy, but also the cost of almost everything that requires transportation or fuel for other reasons (such as farm tractors). In the US right now, unemployment is over 9%. Those are normal numbers for most of Europe even when they are not in a recession, so I am not eager to follow any of their economic models or advice.
